An open letter regarding the development of RVGL

I am writing on behalf of the team revolving around the Re-Volt I/O online races and the majority of its participants. The races have grown quite popular over the past half a year, which inevitably led to our rooms constantly reaching full capacity. There have been a few occasions when we were forced to create two rooms due to the large amount of spectators. Unfortunately, they were difficult to manage and usually ended with one room having too few players.

We believe it would not only be in our (or the host’s) interest to increase the player limit (up to 30, similar to the Clockwork Carnage), but the whole community could profit from it. Some tracks might not support the start grid and races might be chaotic on some tracks, but choosing the right player limit of a race is up to the host.

While this has been the most requested feature so far, there are a few more things that we believe we could greatly benefit from:

The ability to kick players or designate them as spectators. It is especially troublesome when players simply idle around (in some cases, the players in question had to be away for a moment, but did not want to lose their spot in the race), thus hindering other people from joining. Cheating, refusing to choose a correct car, spamming the chat and disrespectful behaviour are some other reasons that make this a much needed feature.

If the player limit is raised, it would be essential to have an option which disables the ability to obtain stars through regular pick-ups. Their usage is already far too frequent in races with 12 players, let alone if we were to have even more than that.

Giving players the ability to change cars in the middle of a session (working similarly to the Next Track option) would be very useful. Not only that players wouldn’t risk missing a race (or losing their spot), but the host would also be able to experiment with various options without restarting the session.

Spectating already started races would also be a useful feature to have, or at least an indicator in the lobby which states whether a race is currently in progress or not. There have been many cases in which a new player would persistently ask us to start the race while we were already in the middle of one.

Due to the increasing popularity of the online races, we are finally able to host special events like drift races and other events with a defined selection of cars. It would be very helpful for us to constrict the selection of cars for online races. That would also make picking a car much easier for people who are not familiar with the given range of cars.

A small feature request that we think is long overdue: A skin changer for cars (multiple textures being designated in the parameters). While not a priority, this feature would give us the ability to have only one car with multiple paint jobs rather than having many versions of the exact same car but with different names and textures.

Finally, Huki, we have one last huge concern. We are aware that you might be busy and thus unable to be around as often to respond to all messages or work on RVGL at the same pace you previously used to. However, this is very worrying for us, as we fear there is the risk you may ultimately disappear — similarly to Jigebren, which was essentially a death sentence for the Blender plugin. Even if you have no intentions of abandoning the project, it is generally wise to have more than one person working on a project this big. Not only that it would speed up its progress, but it would significantly lower the risk of its death (which, if it were to happen, would severely cripple the community).

It's also understandable that you may be uncertain on who would be trustworthy enough to share the source code with. Although the final decision is up to you, our biggest endorsement goes to Marv, who is one of the most talented, ambitious and dedicated people in the whole community. He has done many things to demonstrate this, such as maintaining RV Frontend, bringing people together for various projects (such as Re-Make), making Re-Volt available for Mac, a lot of fantastic custom content, various useful tools and, of course, setting up Re-Volt I/O.

We hope you are willing to take our requests into consideration. With its growing popularity, we see a lot of potential in the game and its community, and we believe it is time to make use of it. Re-Volt is very important to us and we only want the best for it.

I think is a bit dumb from Huki's side to not share the content with at least 1 person of confidence (maybe a user who has been many years in the rv world).

Regarding to the additions: Would be awesome to see the number of cars up to 20 or maybe 25 (with unlimited room for spectators), and the in-game car selection would be a relief for the racer who has chosen a Pro in a Rookie race.

Those 2 things need to be implemented in the game. They will raise the game experience

Blocking star from pickups? I'd say no, unless this will be possible to do only if there are more driving players than 12 or 14 or 16, but that would be too difficult or impossible to implement.

Spectating instantly after late-join or an indicator for late-joiners that a race is in progress? Yes please

A defined selection of pickable cars? That would be difficult to implement, and even if it would be added, that would have to make people wait before they could pick their car. Why? Because today anyone can pick a car as quickly as he wants to just after joining. With that feature, host would need some time to pick allowed cars, and after that players could choose their car. Or - making such selection would force players to re-pick their car - that would be irritating, buggy, etc.

In-game car switcher: yes. That would have to change the car for the next track, not the track that is currently raced by that person of course.

Skin changer for cars: yes, a great feature - but only if every player sees other players' skin choices [what I mean: there would be some skins in a car's folder to choose, every player would have same skins thanks to RVGL updates/RVGL car+track+DCintegration pack (unless someone mods a certain skin - then such skin is seen only by that person - that's how mods work ofc)]. This way we could play 5 toyecas in one race, but every toyeca would be with a different skin.

And in my opinion skin should be picked after pressing ENTER in car selection with up/down keys (the window when picked car is placed on the ground and camera is zoomed to the car). And skin selections should be remembered, just like last used car/track is also remembered by the game.

One thing I would want to add: please only include skins of decent quality and skins that fit into overall Re-Volt theme (see: stock skins for stock cars). For example I don't want to see a Christmas skin or a NASCAR skin as a "stock" skin. Such skins may be very good, but they are situational/strictly connected with something that is not Re-Volt.

Other feature that need to be added could be download missing content. Instead of the "Unknown Track" message when you dont have an specific track, the game will ask the player if he/she wants to download it or not, a feature also present in other games like Counter-Strike.

Seriously, is a ballache to quit the game, download the track and enter to the game again

I totally support this. I hope these ideas will be implemented and yes I made this account only to show my support so please Huki we hope you take this into consideration. I would even be interested in learning how to manage RVGL along with Marv.

Dolo wrote:URV, if you want a version adapted to the sessions you create, you can or you will be able to do it yourself if one day the sources are published.

That is certainly a possibility, provided that Huki publishes the source code. However, that is unlikely to happen, and a more plausible outcome would be for Huki to share the source personally with other people; in which case, the question would be whether the team as a whole would be willing to maintain two different versions of RVGL.

Not an idea to cross off the list, but I fear it would be unlikely to happen.

Dolo wrote:RVGL (formerly revolt) must keep a simple and healthy base of the original game without polluting it with unnecessary things that does not match the majority of players.

Why do you think that, though? Why is it necessary to keep it close to the original game? Is it simply nostalgia? Do you hate seeing Re-Volt growing further and further away from what you have already gotten used to? That is a valid reason, I think. However, please try to take in consideration what the rest of the community thinks, as much as I try to keep in mind your point of view. The vast majority of the community seems to agree with these changes. If there are others who share your point of view, I never see them speak out, and thus we cannot take their opinion into consideration as well.

Finally, why do you think these features are unnecessary? Quite the opposite, I would say. For example, during the races last Tuesday, I understood there was a certain someone insistent on causing trouble, unwilling to select the correct car despite warnings and clearly knowing the rules. This further enforces the idea that we truly need the ability to kick players or designate them as spectators.

Dolo wrote:And for example, seeing the number of players go from 12 to 30 is completely absurd and irresponsible when you see the stability of the gameplay on games with more than 8 players.

I daresay that this might be a bit of an exaggeration. As I have previously stated, even if the option would be there, it is unnecessary for it to become the norm (and unlikely to, as well). Other hosts would still be able to set the limit down to 12, or 8, or whatever they prefer.

Additionally, the races I host could do very well with the chaos caused by a high amount of players (though I doubt we would even reach 30 players). Of course, there is certainly a limit to this chaos, hence why I suggested disabling the possibility to obtain stars through regular pick-ups (zipper's idea to automatically enable it only when the player count surpasses 12 is very good, I might add). Let us not forget that people have wanted a higher car limit for single-player for a very long time, myself included; there cannot possibly be an argument against that, can it?

My apologies, Dolo, but in the end, I fail to understand how these crazy, unnecessary features would directly affect you. Would you be able to clarify, please?

URV, in life, there are conservatives and destructors, and I belong to the 1st category...

URV wrote:The vast majority of the community seems to agree with these changes. If there are others who share your point of view, I never see them speak out, and thus we cannot take their opinion into consideration as well.

Rather the vast majority who participate in the events you organize seems to agree with you...
The majority of the community does not come here and does not really speak or very rarely.

URV wrote:Finally, why do you think these features are unnecessary? Quite the opposite, I would say. For example, during the races last Tuesday, I understood there was a certain someone insistent on causing trouble, unwilling to select the correct car despite warnings and clearly knowing the rules. This further enforces the idea that we truly need the ability to kick players or designate them as spectators.

You talk about a feature that was already present in version 1.2 and that was quite useful, besides I never mentioned it in my previous post.

URV wrote:I daresay that this might be a bit of an exaggeration. As I have previously stated, even if the option would be there, it is unnecessary for it to become the norm (and unlikely to, as well). Other hosts would still be able to set the limit down to 12, or 8, or whatever they prefer.

You underestimate a bit the impact that may have an increase in the maximum players limit. If we begin to increase this limit, it will eventually become a standard, it is a certainty ...
This is why it is irresponsible to want to modify this value just to satisfy a core of players who again does not represent the majority of players ...
The consequences on the gameplay will be disastrous, especially since this one has already suffered a lot of damage since the development of version 1.2 ...

The changes you suggest are far too orientated to what you want to set up with re-volt.io to formally integrate them in a version that concerns all players...

Dolo wrote:URV, in life, there are conservatives and destructors, and I belong to the 1st category...

Although that feels like an extremely black-and-white perspective, I'd rather attempt to strike a balance between the two. I understand the importance in preserving the original shape of Re-Volt, but I also believe some changes or additions may be vital in order to ensure the growth and longevity of the community.

I really don't think these features would change the original game too much. What is it that makes you think differently?

Dolo wrote:You underestimate a bit the impact that may have an increase in the maximum players limit. If we begin to increase this limit, it will eventually become a standard, it is a certainty ...
This is why it is irresponsible to want to modify this value just to satisfy a core of players who again does not represent the majority of players ...
The consequences on the gameplay will be disastrous, especially since this one has already suffered a lot of damage since the development of version 1.2 ...

You say I am underestimating the impact these changes would have, and perhaps that might be true — but I believe that you might also be overestimating it. How are you so certain that the consequences would be disastruous? Is it not merely bias due to the fact that you are unhappy with the changes brought by RVGL and 1.2 so far?

Finally, let us not forget that the changes would still be reversible. If, at some point, RVGL were to lower the player limit again, it would once again become the norm, because players usually have to stick with the latest RVGL release if they wish to play online.

There is nothing wrong with at least observing the result this feature would bring.

Dolo wrote:The changes you suggest are far too orientated to what you want to set up with re-volt.io to formally integrate them in a version that concerns all players...

My ultimate goal with this is not to bring some changes that would simply benefit those who participate in the races I organize — I merely wish to ensure the growth and longevity of this community. If Re-Volt, an 18-year old game, is going to remain as it has always been, how much longer is it going to have an active community? How much longer until it's going to die out? From what I have noticed, until last year it has mostly been us veterans keeping the scene alive.

I want to see many new players arrive on the scene and help the community grow. I want these changes to keep those people in mind, and the online races I organize are designed to make it easy for newcomers to stick around the community. I really believe these changes would not stop you and other veterans (myself included) from continuing to enjoy the regular Toyeca races.

Developers make mistakes.
Developers put their own mark/signature on everywhere they touch

This patch is supposed to follow the original spirit. Why it had to go with a different path and change feelings while it's doing what it's advertised which is fixing bugs?

If your only reason for this letter is improve the game for your own organizational tournament then it's wrong. you're not fully thinking in the community.

For more than 8 players in multiplayer: THINK in the implications it brings, it needs a lot of improvement. while its designed for modems this has evolved with the patch and at least it can handle 12 players with no issue. the original game can barely handle 8 or 12 pretty well as long the conditions are "perfect" (no lag, good pc, etc)

do we want to keep the game sane or plagued with bugs?

for instance: many would agree that the bumper physics has never been so insane since huki changed it for the first time in 1.2: you crash a wall and your car goes flying!!

Weapons not working with lag is another thing that bothers us, it has been partially fixed.
And cars sometimes appear immune to any collision or it's harder to push than offline

We are blessed for the UI introductions such as search
The worst part of the "improvements" is how it breaks the gameplay spirit

Why is the project still marked as alpha? the game itself has always been stable except in the first days of the project. 1.2 should have a stable tagged release or final if it's not going to be maintained anymore. rvgl is alpha, sure. but there should be a beta release sometime soon.

let's all mature and move on please.

Yes, I'm the ABC block and you can find me in Toy World 1 track!
Reborn as Juest Zungo PS: I prefer chatting and i have Steam, Skype, Google and Microsoft account, just ask for it via PM or rarely find me in RVHouse. Also check out my interests.

Once again, I am not suggesting these features simply so my own races can benefit from them. These races exist to try and bring new people in the community and encourage them (along with older players) to stick around. If these features are implemented, I strongly believe it would serve as an even better motivator for people to stick around. I am keeping the whole community in mind, not just our side of it.

Of course, as I previously mentioned, I also understand the importance of sticking close to the original and focusing solely on bug fixing. If it was possible to have a separate version of RVGL with these additions, it would certainly be the preferable outcome so both sides can remain happy. However, it is unclear whether that is currently possible, and many of us wish to enjoy these completely optional features in the near future.

In the end, it is Huki's decision whether or not to implement these features. Regardless of the outcome, I believe that the more important issue at hand is that he is currently the only one who is working on RVGL and has access to the source code. It doesn't matter who else would have access to it; we just want to ensure that RVGL will live on and perhaps even progress at a faster pace.

First things first. Dolo, you want to preserve Re-Volt. So if we would add a skin changer and up the amount of players in multi-player. As well as the ability to kick players or make them spectators in online.

Would the gameplay change? Do any of the cups change? Do any of the physics change?
If you don’t like this update then why don’t you just use an older version if you’re so nostalgic? Why not just play rv1.1? I mean, the mods you made changed the game way more from the original then these ideas would do.

It’s not a change, it’s an addition we are adding to it, not removing or changing anything. And, of course, I do realize that bugs will come along with this but that’s always going to happen. About Games barely being able to handle 8 players: We're not using dial up anymore and RVGL is also not using directplay anymore.

Also, ABC, RVGL will always improve and bugs will always come no matter these new ideas get implemented or not. And these improvements don’t break gameplay spirit. You could always use an older version if you wanted to so it doesn’t matter.

The problem is that some aspects of the gameplay escape certain players, this is what differentiates purists and novices who really know the game only a short time ago ...

No one will ever complain about gameplay v1.1 if we had the ability to "export" it on RVGL. On the other hand, the gameplay on 1.2 / RVGL is problematic, except that not everyone can notice it...

This is why most players do not want to play again on version 1.1, not that they prefer the gameplay of RVGL, just by ignorance ...
The new features taking precedence over gameplay, so the majority will always prefer the latest versions ...

That is why, in this kind of debate, the opinion of some people weighs more heavily than others ...

URV @ 11 Feb 2017, 01:36 PM wrote:
The vast majority of the community seems to agree with these changes. If there are others who share your point of view, I never see them speak out, and thus we cannot take their opinion into consideration as well.

Just wanna say I agree with your original post features suggestion and that your online races are a great initiative and a huge sucess and IDK if this was the relevant thread to complain for Dolo.

But since you mention people not speaking out I will do it (I did it 1 year ago)
I disagree with your vision of the community. The group of players (mostly german) behind revolt.io may agree with all things concerning rvgl but do they represent the whole community?

By that I mean the players that played the original revolt CD-ROM back in the day, RVGL has different physics and different netcode making it feel like a somewhat different game (not even talking about the true vast majority of active players outside your group that just want to play and don't give a F).

I wish the priority was to work to get something closer to the original and to the Acclaim developers work gameplay wise while still keeping all the great features brought by RVGL outside gameplay.

Yohanov wrote:I disagree with your vision of the community. The group of players (mostly german) behind revolt.io may agree with all things concerning rvgl but do they represent the whole community?

The group of people playing in URV's races mainly consists of people from the Discord server (and thus basically most people from the RVL forum) and also people who happen to join via RVHouse. There are new people who found out about the game due to the website or our streams, as well. There is no common demographic.I'm also the only German behind re-volt.io

In the end, we have our own vision for Re-Volt, and you have your own. That is that, to each their own — there is no right or wrong. But what I am persistently trying to say here is that I am certain we can fulfill both visions.

We all love Re-Volt here, that much is true. Let's put aside our differences and try to figure out a solution that makes everyone happy, alright? Let us say, for example, that the gameplay is brought once again closer to the original, but at the same time, the features we desire (which, once again, are completely optional) are also implemented. That cannot possibly be an issue, can it?

First, dont go crazy and triggered on me.
I feel insulted, i am quite mature but apparently not for you guys.... the hate goes on...

gameplay changes do break the spirit for some people. look at dolo rants for example

Yes, everyone has its own RV vision but we should all agree in a single one and a developer who is ready to face this challenge.

Sorry urv, i understand your concern. perhaps a static version of RVGL/1.2 should be used for tournaments? (yes, one without dev, without custom cars support, and a set of predefined rules plus a dedicated lobby for races, all that to prevent cheating and make the race fair, maybe give the choice to enforce the rules such as... automatic respawn on reverse driving, etc)

There should be a stable version where people can pick from: bugfixed 1.1 which is the aim of the 1.2 project in first place and for the sake of nostalogia. 1.2 itself in a more or less bugless state ("final product"). rvgl stable, beta and alpha/trunk
then the same versions for competition purposes only. only stable available in the case of rvgl

I am more on the technical side of the things. IMO that idea will be the best for everyone.

I want the community to settle down and have a choice for everyone. please stop the endless disagree.

PS:Marv, talk to me please, what happened?

Yes, I'm the ABC block and you can find me in Toy World 1 track!
Reborn as Juest Zungo PS: I prefer chatting and i have Steam, Skype, Google and Microsoft account, just ask for it via PM or rarely find me in RVHouse. Also check out my interests.

Dolo @ 12 Feb 2017, 03:55 PM wrote: {1} No one will ever complain about gameplay v1.1 if we had the ability to "export" it on RVGL. On the other hand, the gameplay on 1.2 / RVGL is problematic, except that not everyone can notice it...

{2} This is why most players do not want to play again on version 1.1, not that they prefer the gameplay of RVGL, just by ignorance ...
The new features taking precedence over gameplay, so the majority will always prefer the latest versions ...

{1} Maybe people prefer RVGL because they like it more than 1.1 or 1.2b? Havent u thought about that? Maybe you are one of very few who experience those 'problems'?

RVGL today is a massive improvement over 1.1, 1.2b and 1.2a. And we can improve it further without messing too much with original game: just add a skin changer, option to kick/move to spect/mute, increase player limit to (for example) 16, add a possiblity to change car mid-game and add latejoin spectator - that's not is not a radical transformation of the game, but an improvement over what we have right now. We can stick just to those ideas that I think would satisfy almost everybody.

[HIDE=Offtopic] And then what, maybe we could focus on Re-Make project so we could implement it into RVGL? That would be truly a radical change, but a change we need to revitalize ReVolt, as well as to make thos game kinda 'ours'. Anyway, its a long way to go and we shouldnt discuss it right now. [/HIDE]

{2} Or maybe people prefer gameplay in RVGL so thats why they play play it? 'You' is not 'most players'. You is you, your opinion is your opinion.

I don't have a horse in this race since all I really use RVGL for these days is benchmarking old hardware. That said, I fail to see any downside to implementing some of the changes URV has suggested. How could adding the ability to kick problematic players negatively impact anyone? (aside from the problematic players themselves of course ) I can see the argument against raising the player limit due to ping issues, so I'll leave that alone. Disabling stars in pickups? Sure, why not. Changing cars mid-session? Go for it, as long as it's implemented in a sensible way i.e. you can only queue up the next car for the next race and nothing more. Spectating a current race? Great. Restricting car selection? Not a problem.

Point is, the outcry over these feature requests is unjustified and short-sighted IMO. Nobody would be forced to use them outside of multiplayer and they aren't changing physics or overall gameplay. If the debate were over which changes should be prioritized for inclusion in RVGL, then I'd have no problem with the state of this thread. Sadly, that's not the case.

EDIT: added clarification in second paragraph

The Obsoletist, a YouTube channel about making the most of old technology.

Dolo @ 12 Feb 2017, 03:55 PM wrote: {1} No one will ever complain about gameplay v1.1 if we had the ability to "export" it on RVGL. On the other hand, the gameplay on 1.2 / RVGL is problematic, except that not everyone can notice it...

{2} This is why most players do not want to play again on version 1.1, not that they prefer the gameplay of RVGL, just by ignorance ...
The new features taking precedence over gameplay, so the majority will always prefer the latest versions ...

{1} Maybe people prefer RVGL because they like it more than 1.1 or 1.2b? Havent u thought about that? Maybe you are one of very few who experience those 'problems'?

RVGL today is a massive improvement over 1.1, 1.2b and 1.2a. And we can improve it further without messing too much with original game: just add a skin changer, option to kick/move to spect/mute, increase player limit to (for example) 16, add a possiblity to change car mid-game and add latejoin spectator - that's not is not a radical transformation of the game, but an improvement over what we have right now. We can stick just to those ideas that I think would satisfy almost everybody.

[offtopic] And then what, maybe we could focus on Re-Make project so we could implement it into RVGL? That would be truly a radical change, but a change we need to revitalize ReVolt, as well as to make thos game kinda 'ours'. Anyway, its a long way to go and we shouldnt discuss it right now. [offtopic end]

{2} Or maybe people prefer gameplay in RVGL so thats why they play play it? 'You' is not 'most players'. You is you, your opinion is your opinion.

You didnot read or you didnot understand that i wrote.
90% of players will always prefer rvgl to version 1.1 not for gameplay but for all the features that have been implemented since the beginning of the project, it is a certainty ...
As soon as some players lend themselves to the game by retrying old versions, they are all unanimous to say that the gameplay is different and often confess that it is "better".
Except that the gameplay is not a priority for everyone, especially that each one is not necessarily impacted to the same degree according to the configuration of the PC or the controller used ...

In any case, you will never see anyone complaining about the gameplay of version 1.1... (i don't talk about beta 1.2...)

Today, the different changes of gameplay that have taken place have not been born of a desire on the part of the developers, but of a cause that is not really known and which proves that the mastery is not total ....
For the greatest misfortune of some ...

I've been involved in many old games, arcade or consoles.. It's the first time I'm witnessing this.
In other communities, when a new way of playing a classic is released (amateur or official) there is always a lot of criticism and analysis about the difference with the original.
People can accept some differences (imput lag,resolution, framerate) in return for new fonctionnality like online play, new features or practicality (Once again I agree with URV suggestion for rvgl).

[HIDE=Offtopic]Although to be honest there is always a majority who will still only play in the original support, like arcade cabinet or console + crt etc, unless the port is truely "arcade perfect".
Like old fighting games are still played a lot in japanese arcades altough you have a lot of console ports but they feel differens.
[/HIDE]
But touching the rom/sourcecode/gameplay values would be considered a total heresy and nobody would imagine it possible. Or else it's categorized as a custom hacked version like project M or street fighter fourth strike..
So I'm suprised that so many people just don't care here. I mean even if you totally adapted to the new gameplay and are fine with it it's almost about a philosophical matter about the preservation of the original game and respect to the original developers work which is sacred...

So I can picture that with the next windows 11/12/13/14 only RVGL will be available and the original gameplay lost forever.
So if I want to play the original gameplay I'd have to dig out some Old PC with old windows.
Well fine with me after all that's the destiny of most old pc games that don't get republished and don't have awesome community like this one..
But it would feel a waste to not have the best of both worlds meaning the best of Acclaim and Huki in the same version preserved for the future.

Post scriptum concernig revolt live/io/
[HIDE=Offtopic]You Admins can say that you all have the same opinion about this but when people actually voice another opinion in your discord they are mocked if not bullied and insulted like I was... No real debate. Even such absurd affirmation like " Playing without item would be a time trial" cannot be debated.. Some member of your group told me they agreed in PM that older versions gameplay are better but they would never say it in public by fear and peer pressure. So sorry to doubt the unicity of your opinions [/HIDE]

[HIDE=Offtopic]Clearly other communities are better than us.
being a dictator in discord is unacceptable but it's a minority and "legal" unfortunately
It's a matter of different visions. some do it right, others do it wrong.
"touching a rom/sourcecode/gameplay values is perfectly possible as long one is skilled, contrary to popular belief. sure, there might be exceptions where it has been lost forever or its simply impossible to do so. also some may consider it sacred
People can choose, we can choose not have official support for the most popular OS because we are forced to upgrade. there is always a community for those.[/HIDE]

Yes, I'm the ABC block and you can find me in Toy World 1 track!
Reborn as Juest Zungo PS: I prefer chatting and i have Steam, Skype, Google and Microsoft account, just ask for it via PM or rarely find me in RVHouse. Also check out my interests.

How on earth did this conversation transform from adding completely optional features to RVGL to "RVGL plays differently than 1.1" again?

I think I've mentioned here before that RVGL is RVGL, and RVGL cannot become Re-Volt or Re-Volt 1.1. If some of you still have some hope left that RVGL can return to 1.1, especially the online part, it won't. I really doubt that will ever happen. You have to accept it and live on. RVGL went through a long development process, and the only way to pinpoint the possible "problem" is to go back to Re-Volt v1.2 Beta patch source code and re-add modifications from later builds little by little. I consider beta as the last true to original build. Others will think different of course.
If "the problems" already were in v1.2 Beta, the reason could have been in the xbox source code itself most likely. Meaning, there's no chance to "upgrade" the "original" game, unless someone provides a legit PC 1.0/1.1 code.

I'm well aware how RVGL "feels" different from 1.1, but considering how the latter one is much more stable and convenient to play online, and also as fun to play, I think my answer is obvious. Do I consider the older one or the newer one better? No, they are just two different things which co-exist at the same time. If I really wanted to play the game in "its purest form" I would always choose the original with the original patch. People still have a choice to use RVGL, v1.2 alpha, v1.2 beta or 1.1 with WolfR4 after all. It's understandable that you can't use old patches on newer machines/OS. The only way to play an old game is to play on an old machine. It always was like that.

To other people who might think that RVGL "doomed Re-Volt and its future", imagine this way: If RVGL and 1.2 never existed today, what would we use right now? Probably still stuck with 1.1 and WolfR4 patcher. But does that mean we would have as much people playing online/offline as of now? Probably not. (I wouldn't been here, writing this post in this forum at this very moment in the first place) Considering the fact that 1.1 has serious compatibility issues, it wouldn't have survived for long either way, in my opinion.
---tl;dr: URV gave optional RVGL suggestions, which can't affect gameplay whatsoever; old, non-RVGL versions have nothing to do with this topic, because RVGL is a separate being from other "Re-Volt" builds; people still have a choice which version to use, nobody is forced.

Since URV focus is mainly on tournaments i vote for those changes to happen on a separate branch. it's important to keep the game with minimal/zero updates when playing such competitions.

The original pc 1.1 is part of the xbox sources leak, it's the PC checkin and there's two copies.
The compiled version there is a developer build but it can be perfectly turned into the retail game which is what huki and others did.

Yes, I'm the ABC block and you can find me in Toy World 1 track!
Reborn as Juest Zungo PS: I prefer chatting and i have Steam, Skype, Google and Microsoft account, just ask for it via PM or rarely find me in RVHouse. Also check out my interests.

Only regarding the OP, I am completely supportive of the presented ideas above. About the skin changing feature, though, it shouldn't be multiple skins defined in parameters. Rather, it should be multiple attributes by making completely new parameters.

There should, however be a clear definition between "Just a skin" and something that completely modifies the car. This would open the game to more experimentation, while letting people who want to make packs of cars supply a single archive with all of their cars in it, complete with text files that define models, skins and performance attributes. This is all going to be confusing without understanding contextually how it can be defined by users, so allow for an explanation of distribution, then I'll bang on about practical examples of implementation.

Naming schemeFor the authorAppearance
Let's say for sake of theory that authors can make new skins by defining them in s files. In each s file, the chunk from parameters about car appearance is used, defining car body model, aerial model, and choice of skin. Each of these files should be sorted numerically and define the order of the skins presented to the user. So s1.txt would just change the appearance of the car.

Performance
For authors who want to provide different performance, as well appearance if they wish, they can define these as p files. In each p file, there can be different performance characteristics, and they can include appearance if an author wants to make different performance types appear different. Regardless, the s files will override whatever is defined in the p file selected should a user want to skin their car differently, should the author include different skins.

For the user
Users can have the same exact options as the author, but users should allow the author to expand their selection of skins and models as they choose by not conflicting with the uthor's future expansion plans, so the game should respect this with u files. User appearance files for personal use should be us files, while user performance settings should be up files.

For reskins and reparams of existing content
There is a lot of this in RVZ. For users that simply want to submit a reskin or reparam of an existing original work or stock work, the game should accept differently-named files, putting in that content sorted by alphabetical order.

ImplementationOriginal works
Let's use Duo M and Manmountain's Quantum 8 set as an example. Instead of a batch file (which is an awful means of distribution please stop) the cars can be included with the default being named whatever and defined as whatever in parameters. since they perform differently, and use different skins to represent this, the author could submit these as p files (p1.txt-p7.txt. have the default be whatever they want the user to see first, then have different p files with different skins and parameters. Since the skins are not defined as s files, there are no skins the user can choose from, and they'll all have different names.

Repaints and reparams
Let's use Duo M's Toyeca XT pack as an example. The file included for the performance of the vehicle should be xt.p.txt (just the one) using whatever skin as the first skin, but since it uses the same UV map as Toyeca, there should be no reason why stock Toyeca shouldn't have the XT skins available either, so they should come included as xt.s1.txt, xt.s2.txt and xt.s3.txt. This would make the vehicle selectable under "Toyeca" as an alternate parameter.

For personal repaints, the user would simply need to include their textures and make a us.txt file. If they want to author it, they precede with a name of their choosing, so for example, foo.s.txt, or add numbers if they are in a different order.

Online peer distribution
If such a system is implemented, personal user skins should be excluded from transmission online. This is why having the different filename for it is important. If somebody wants to make a repaint for Sabre Storm and keep it as theirs, fine, that should be allowed. It only means RVGL should then fall back to old behaviour and use the original skin instead. If any downloading should be done, the argument -sload should be ignored, with the loading bar being used for download progress instead.

For users that mix and match, online users should receive the performance and appearance files from both sets in use. This would allow for people to use whatever they want, and to give others what they need in order to see alternate skins from different users. If the skin and param files already exist then the game can skip downloading them to save time.

I don't want to bloat this thread any more than it already is. I'm also quite shocked about the kind of conversation this thread initiated... It's nothing to lose bad words about. We're talking about some ideas for a game here. Before this really derails, I'd ask you to refrain from posting more, unless you really have a point to make. I don't want Huki to have to go through so many posts.

[hide=Regarding E-Bee's idea]
My idea for a skin chooser would be a skins folder inside the car's folder (e.g. //cars/beatall/skins) that has alternative bitmaps in it. In the game, you would then be able to pick one with the arrow keys. (No mention of the bitmaps in any parameter.txt.)
If you want a carbox for each skin, it could go like this: blue.bmpblue_carbox.bmp. The display name could just be taken from the file name of the skin.

For alternative parameters, one could just use an entirely different car folder to keep things clean. Multiple parameter files in one car folder would be too much like having a multitude of cars in one folder, which is a bit messy.
I fear that multiple parameters per car would overcomplicate things, but in the end it depends on the implementation.
[/hide]

Since URV focus is mainly on tournaments i vote for those changes to happen on a separate branch. it's important to keep the game with minimal/zero updates when playing such competitions.

The original pc 1.1 is part of the xbox sources leak, it's the PC checkin and there's two copies.
The compiled version there is a developer build but it can be perfectly turned into the retail game which is what huki and others did.

To apologize for what?
We have a clear request from a player (supported by these buddies) about an important change, namely the maximum limit of the number of players accepted during a hosting.
It is obvious that a modification of this style will have a detrimental effect on the multiplayer gameplay, and denying it is proof of bad faith. RVGL is not guaranteed to support it... Especially that no dedicated server has yet been born ...
You should think about stability of the multiplayer gameplay first and not to start in this kind of request ...

And at the end, it's a very interesting debate that took place on a subject that was not really at the beginning :-)

Reading through this thread has me conflicted, but also somewhat glad that it isn't entirely an echo chamber of support, even if most of the outliers are people I dislike.

However, desperately going on about the whole gameplay debate from every single angle imaginable is pointless, as all of you seem to forget what happened back in 2014, when Jigebren attempted to restore the "original gameplay". As far as I recall, people completely dismissed his efforts in the end - which no doubt played a big part in why he vanished. While I may have played a minor part in it and regret it, I've learned from it and moved on.

Just because you disagree with something that most people agree with, does not make you superior to them. Adding arrogant and narrow-minded remarks along with it doesn't help matters either.

At the end of the day, you have to make do with what you have, and adapt. Preserving a game in terms of features goes hand-in-hand with stagnation, and ends up shortening the life span of a player base much quicker. The gameplay has changed, but most of us are content with the very minor changes in behaviour because of the sheer amount of features RVGL has over early 2011 patches. Calling it an entirely different game is preposterous; this isn't on the level of World of Warcraft, where it played very, very differently in 2004 to how it does today.

In the end though, all of that has been discussed to death multiple times already, and is not what this thread is about.

People active on the Re-Volt Discord, RV House and the forums (a lot of whom are in the Discord in the first place) make up most of this community. RVIO is a page that was set up with them in mind. Thanks to that and Discord, it's a lot easier to organize races and have a high turnout most of the time, though with a small number of people forced to spectate a full lobby because of the current player limit.

There's nothing to lose by increasing the number of players in a race and going ahead with the changes if they were to be implemented. They extend the game, and would not replace anything. It wouldn't stop people from hosting Pro races with an 8-player limit. The suggestions made would not change the way you play the game right now.
Cybershadow and Deadcode for example, extended Worms Armageddon by increasing the map size limit tremendously, and increasing the worm limit from 18 to 48. Without those changes, and without the continuous development support they provided, that game's player base would no doubt be significantly smaller right now.

being a dictator in discord is unacceptable but it's a minority and "legal" unfortunately

You are an untrustworthy and toxic individual who has proven time and time again that you will never change your ways. That's why you've been banned multiple times in RVL, that's why you've been warned many times on ORP, and that's why you will never be let into the Re-Volt Discord.

You Admins can say that you all have the same opinion about this but when people actually voice another opinion in your discord they are mocked if not bullied and insulted like I was...

You weren't exactly an angel either, consistently insulting me while you were there. Stop playing the victim.

VaiDuX461 @ 14 Feb 2017, 06:27 PM wrote: How on earth did this conversation transform from adding completely optional features to RVGL to "RVGL plays differently than 1.1" again?

This thread was about features suggestion and a part of the community want the priority feature to be gameplay preservation... A part of the community wants it so bad that they will pick any thread to say it lol...

Also the suggestion comes from admins of a closed between themselves group admin that acts like they represent the majority of the community which is a problem to me.

Most of us post as individuals opinions but like you see above they are a team, they back each other, they even ask people on their discord to support this thread.
I don't know if this preplanned lobbying and manipulation and attacks are healthy.

If what you say is true even concerning offline and we'll never have the original gameplay on rvgl or 1.2 versions... Well sad day. But some as soon the first alphas with different gameplay started to be released, some people immediately alerted about it and were told that it was only alpha give it time. And now you say that it's too late to be reversed... So they were right to complain in every thread... I wish I was I was active at the time.

" This isn't called v1.2 just for fun. We will stick true to the original game's code. "

But once again I agree with the OP but I suppose Huki had thought of that already but it's just lot of work to implement, be patient!

By the way Nero as usual I didn't read your message since I think you are toxic but I had a short glimpse, FYI I have never been banned from RVL nor discord, just left mostly because of your attitude and the fact that admins would let you bully new players like me, not interested in different opinions or newcomer.

Yohanov @ 15 Feb 2017, 10:37 PM wrote:By the way Nero I didn't read your message since I think you are toxic but I had a short glimpse, FYI I have never been banned from RVL nor discord, just left mostly because of your attitude and the fact that admins would let you bully new players like me, not interested in different opinions or newcomer.

That's entirely fine, I will admit that entire situation was handled very poorly. But don't let your bitterness towards me and the rest of the staff on the Discord plague your judgement too much.

From an impartial point of view though, ignoring what one has to say, just because of their "attitude", and because they're "toxic" is similarly narrow-minded and toxic as well.

You are still continuing to derail the thread, however. It's not about "gameplay preservation". It's about extending the game.

I would like to say that, if Huki decides to read through all this, it would take a very long time at this point. I believe that everything that had to be said has already been said. Let us now wait for him to give us his own thoughts on the matter and hopefully come to a conclusion.

Dolo wrote:When nero intervenes, all the debate loses in quality and in credibility ...

When you open your posts with narrow-minded statements like that (and it wouldn't be the first one you came out with in this thread), nobody is going to take you seriously.

About the maximum limit of players, it is enough to create several rooms and limit them according to the total number of players to keep a reasonable online gameplay

URV mentioned how that was already attempted before. It's not as effective as you may think it is. Most people would rather stick to one room in the first place and spectate just to be part of the "main room", so it's not a solution.

I hate agree with Dolo, since most of the time he is a harmful coefficient anywhere in connection with Re-Volt (I won't mention already pointed examples, waste of time) and I am sure he'll take this as a personal attack against himself and his builded ego and he'll attack back like a kid in the kindergarden (blahblahblah), but this more room idea is achievable and THIS is what Re-Volt and community need.

Why?
- RVGL let you join to multiplayer races IF there is a player who can host. We need more hosts, because not all potential hosts can host a lobby each day and because players' number raising thanks to these races.
- It worked in regular picks races years ago with hil, there were two rooms with full number of players, and it was good.
- If some players can't see each others, it can happen that it'll work fine in the other room. (Why can't it?)

My opinion is that we have to limit rooms to 10 instead of 12 and instead of 16 to not let being spectators there, spectators take the seats and don't let join others whos want to join to play (to follow the races as spectators, there is the stream thanks to Marv), because more than 8 players causing strange lag what is not good for the gameplay and the race itself. It can work, if they want to play, they have the chance to join to the other room(s) too. No main room, 2 or 3 SAME room have to be opened at the same time with the limit of the maximum players.
So:

All we need is a cooperation instead of these situations, and we have to confess that your stubborness is the major and main obstacle of this cooperation.
You are a good player, and you can host too. There was and there is now a chance to cooperate instead of to be a bar to this chance of making this game even popular.

Wow, I didn't think I was away for that long. In fact I had an update ready last week but I had no internet for the past couple of days. I'll just get that through and then I'll see what I can address from this thread.

I, uh, just read through this entire thread and all i have to say is what happened?

As a member of the discord and occasional participant in the revolt.io changes, it should be clear that i'm biased in favour of URV's suggestions, but i am primarily an advocate of choice.

as such, i wanted to reiterate something for the ones against these suggestions:

How are these changes affecting your way of playing re-volt in any meaningful way?

For instance, we'd like to be able to have over 12 racers in a game in both singleplayer and multiplayer. How is this preventing you from playing with 12, or the original 8 cars? somewhere down the line the limit was upped from 8 to 12, and it seems to be regarded as a positive change to the game, and for the ones that don't regard it as such, the option to limit cars to 8 is still there.

All of the proposed suggestions would simply extend the game's functionality, but it'd be entirely optional for you to make use of them if you don't wish to. As such, i can't understand why you have gone out of your way to work against giving people more freedom to enjoy re-volt the way they want it.

Some potential gameplay changes were not optional at all.. apparently
A setting could be made but huki was too lazy or overwhelmed with maintaining that.
Developers make mistakes, this is not a perfect world...

just adapt, guys.

Yes, I'm the ABC block and you can find me in Toy World 1 track!
Reborn as Juest Zungo PS: I prefer chatting and i have Steam, Skype, Google and Microsoft account, just ask for it via PM or rarely find me in RVHouse. Also check out my interests.

In general, I'm averse to including changes that feel hacky or don't fit with the game's standards. v1.2/RVGL is supposed to provide a polished version of the game and we've always tried to ensure that the features we add integrate seamlessly with the existing game.

Odie wrote:somewhere down the line the limit was upped from 8 to 12, and it seems to be regarded as a positive change to the game, and for the ones that don't regard it as such, the option to limit cars to 8 is still there.

12 players was in fact the original limit. So far we've never changed that.

Kick player: Could be a useful feature, but a kicked player can easily join back in. Do we need an IP ban to prevent the player from re-joining the ongoing session?

Spectate already started race: This was not supported in earlier client-server builds as the host already had heavy loads to handle. With current P2P builds we can consider bringing this back.

Skin changer: No consensus yet on how to implement it, and more importantly, how to share the right skin used over network. Uploading entire texture to other players is out of the question, so 1) all players should have the skin installed, and 2) each skin should have a name to identify it. This needs more thought...

Star pickup: An option just for disabling this seems too frivolous. I can reduce its probability though (so it appears less often).

Car options: Change cars mid-game - doable. Restrict selectable cars in session - more complex to handle - if the player already selected a car before the host configures this option, we should get the player back to the car select screen.

Lastly, about Source code: I don't want to open it out to the general public right now. There are more than one complications in doing that. Sharing with some trustworthy members sounds ok, but you have to be careful about releasing your own builds, because modified builds can easily crash the game online for everyone.
Well, since Marv is doing such a good job with re-volt.io, I believe he'll be responsible with the code base. I have a few things to clear up with the code, then if he is up to it, I can share.

16 is a good number. We rarely (if at all) get more than that in online races. It'll be great as a buffer for people who join a bit too late and only get to be spectator. Also, events like our All's Fair Competition will definitely benefit from it.

I'm not sure if an IP ban is necessary. Being able to kick players who are afk would be nice enough. We rarely get any trolls who stick around and try to sabotage the races.

While spectating would be nice to have, an indicator whether a race is running or not would suffice for now.

I'll write down a simple model for the skin changer when I get the chance. Synchronizing content might be asking a bit too much. If one player doesn't have the skin, it could just fall back to the default one.

I'm up for taking care about the source at least. I'm not sure if I'll be able to help you with development, but I do know some C.